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darkPrince010 wrote:Plus, common sense for people varies. Some believe not sticking your hand in a fire or licking a frozen lamppost is common sense, while others believe the tenets of their religion or theory of evolution are common sense.

The biggest problem is when people try to use their "common sense" as a replacement for actual proof. I believe evolution is "common sense" (my belief, not nessesarily anyone else's), but unlike some beliefs it can and has been backed up by libraries of scientific data to support it.

I suppose one could argue that "common sense" amounts to base rationales like "do things you enjoy" and "don't do things you do not enjoy." Unfortunately, as several of us have noted, that isn't how its often used.

In all fairness everyone else disagrees with studies they don't like the results of because of ignorance and bias, whereas I am actually capable of knowing which ones are to be trusted and which ones are suspect in their findings because I am better equipped to do so. I know this because a study told me so; I found the results very agreeable.

True. Common sense imo should apply more towards personal preservation instincts (Like said aversion to hot things and digits intermingling), and not towards interpretation of scientific fact ("Despite overhwelming scientific support, I disbelieve global warming because it's snowing, so the globe couldn't possibly be too warm! Plus a well-dressed politician on [Varmit] News told me so...")

Howard A Treesong wrote:
That's a terrible graph, what does it even mean? There's no labels.

Its percent change, at least if this is the original source of the book's data.

Howard A Treesong wrote:
You can't seriously criticise people's use of statistics and then present a graph elsewhere with no labels on the axis or a unit of measurement (what does the y axis even measure), error bars, an indication of significance in the data...

Social sciences have the terrible convention of presenting contextual information by way of end-notes and textual references. Also, lots of us simply assume the reader knows what we're talking about by convention.

It is very, very annoying.

Howard A Treesong wrote:
On the subject of statistics, I've just put together a 10,000 cell Excel table today with all my statistical data for my PhD. Statistics? Don't talk to me about statistics.

Excel? Why not PSAW?


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Ahtman wrote:In all fairness everyone else disagrees with studies they don't like the results of because of ignorance and bias, whereas I am actually capable of knowing which ones are to be trusted and which ones are suspect in their findings because I am better equipped to do so. I know this because a study told me so; I found the results very agreeable.

Well of course, you studied philosophy, which is basically the same thing as being Connor Macleod.

There can only be ONE (Philosophy major)

darkPrince010 wrote:There can only be ONE (Philosophy major)...

...with gainful employment.

Heh, yeah, entry. I kinda black that bit out. I had to use excel because my supervisor was uneasy about other methods. If he'd known how ganky excel was for that kind of statistics he'd have...well, probably not cared. He wasn't that great a scientist.

To be honest, while I prefer PSAW for obvious reasons, having to use R in freshman stats has made me appreciate Excel.

The problem that I have with scientific studies and the results of them, is when they are misused..

Take smoking for instance. The city of New York recently passed a law banning the use of cigarettes and other smoked tobacco (or just plain smoked) products in parks, sidewalks and basically any public and outdoor area. The politicians cited a study conducted by Stanford University, where they said basically that 2nd hand smoke, even outdoors is harmful.. This is the part that the politicians used, but what they failed to quote was the latter half of that.. IF the person exposed to 2nd hand smoke is within approximately 18 inches away from the smoker AND down wind of said smoke.

so yeah.. the part I really hate about scientific studies aren't the studies (for the most part) in and of themselves, its how politicians and the media at large will quote convenient bits of a study for their own ends. I'll not single any one out, because all sides do it.


I also hate how the military (particularly the Army, which I belong to) will present a new PT plan (physical training aka.. exercise) and say that they have "scientific studies" that prove that the exercises they preach in the manner that they preach are good for you, when I personally have found at least five different major universities who have their own studies that conclude the exact opposite. It's almost like there's a conspiracy to wreck soldiers bodies and leave them broken when they leave.

Haven't heard of PSAW.

When I was on my business course, we used Excel to input the data and a specialist package to do the statistics. I can't remember its acronym.

Excel is designed for accounting, it's really good for that.

Business courses include quite a chunk of social psychology too.

Kilkrazy wrote:Haven't heard of PSAW.

When I was on my business course, we used Excel to input the data and a specialist package to do the statistics. I can't remember its acronym.

PSAW is the new name of SPSS, which may have been what you used. STATA is another common program, as is Q.

I have other software for statistical analysis, I'm just compiling the data in Excel. Anyway, what I use needs to be compatible with others in work.

dogma wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Haven't heard of PSAW.

When I was on my business course, we used Excel to input the data and a specialist package to do the statistics. I can't remember its acronym.

PSAW is the new name of SPSS, which may have been what you used. STATA is another common program, as is Q.

Yes, SPSS was what I had.

OTOH, a lot of people will accuse you of relying on personal opinion instead of science if you actually look at the whole study and not just the single number they like, or if you probe into what the study actually says, or if you point out that correlation is not causation. "Gosh there's a single study showing this thing, you must agree with me now" isn't really a useful argument technique. I mean, if you count 20-year-old gang members with felony convictions as 'children', you can make some really scary statistics about dangers to children.

Social science experiments (at least the ones that get in the news) also seem to jump to some really wild conclusions for no good reason. I remember one where some researchers went out and tried handing a $100 bill to people in the street. When a lot of people refused, they concluded that people have an innate dislike of unearned money, so this study got brought up a lot in political discussions. I never saw any adequate explanation of how they eliminated the explanation that people turned the money down because scam artists offer you some "free" money are way, way more common than researchers actually offering it for free.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:Take smoking for instance. The city of New York recently passed a law banning the use of cigarettes and other smoked tobacco (or just plain smoked) products in parks, sidewalks and basically any public and outdoor area. The politicians cited a study conducted by Stanford University, where they said basically that 2nd hand smoke, even outdoors is harmful.

On the one hand, the study isn't correct. On the other hand, I don't really want a lungful of smoke when I'm jogging in the park. I doubt that the study is the primary reason for the law, it's just something that gets said during debates to sound better. The laws generally come about because people just don't like cigarette smoke. Arguing bitterly about second hand smoke ignores the fact that, even if it's not dangerous to everyone, second hand smoke is nasty and dangerous to some people.

Kilkrazy wrote:Haven't heard of PSAW.

When I was on my business course, we used Excel to input the data and a specialist package to do the statistics. I can't remember its acronym.

I use minitab to do a lot of my number crunching. Excel for organizing/formulating.

BearersOfSalvation wrote: I mean, if you count 20-year-old gang members with felony convictions as 'children', you can make some really scary statistics about dangers to children.

Sure, which is why reading the definition section is important to understanding what a study is claiming.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:
I remember one where some researchers went out and tried handing a $100 bill to people in the street. When a lot of people refused, they concluded that people have an innate dislike of unearned money, so this study got brought up a lot in political discussions. I never saw any adequate explanation of how they eliminated the explanation that people turned the money down because scam artists offer you some "free" money are way, way more common than researchers actually offering it for free.

Assuming that your memory is accurate, a dislike of unearned money could be correlated with the prevalence of scam artists. The conclusion you phrased is constituted by the alternative you presented.

dogma wrote:Really? Is that why all those social science papers I read differentiate between correlation and causation?

It's entirely likely that they are using "causation" to mean something that it doesn't.

For example, "smoking causes cancer" improperly implies that it is the act of smoking that causes cancer. This is demonstrably false as there is at least 1 person who has smoked but hasn't gotten cancer.

dogma wrote:The isolation of variables is testing. You're confusing the general concept of "test" with the particular type of test that is "experiment".

I understand that some people improperly label their analysis "testing." This does not make it so. A test is the application of facts to determine the viability of a hypothesis.

dogma wrote:So, you've never actually read a social science journal, have you? Because, while the behavior you describe does occur (just like it does in the hard sciences, go figure) it certainly isn't definitive of the the entire category of "social scientists."

I have it's nice you to ask. And I'll admit, there should probably be a difference between "serious social scientists" and "non-serious social scientists." Serious social scientists say that there is a positive correlation between smoking and cancer. Non-serious social scientists say smoking causes cancer.

The serious ones rarely get any airtime. And they don't write blogs like the one quoted.

dogma wrote:They aren't mutually exclusive. Statistics are often used in the hard sciences.

I never said that they are mutually exclusive. But they are also not the same thing. While statistics is an important area of mathematics, it isn't a substitute for scientific study.

Smoking's relation to cancer is the province of medicine not social science.

dogma wrote:Assuming that your memory is accurate, a dislike of unearned money could be correlated with the prevalence of scam artists. The conclusion you phrased is constituted by the alternative you presented.

Correlation, schmorrleation. There is a huge difference between "I am not accepting that money, it might be a scam artist" and "I am not accepting that money, I don't want unearned money", regardless of how much you convolute the phrasing.

biccat wrote:
It's entirely likely that they are using "causation" to mean something that it doesn't.

For example, "smoking causes cancer" improperly implies that it is the act of smoking that causes cancer. This is demonstrably false as there is at least 1 person who has smoked but hasn't gotten cancer.

The act of smoking causes cancer if any person who has ever smoked has become afflicted with cancer as a result of smoking. Causation is not a process that is intrinsically governed by necessity.

biccat wrote:
I understand that some people improperly label their analysis "testing." This does not make it so. A test is the application of facts to determine the viability of a hypothesis.

I'm glad to see that you agree with me, even if it is unintentional. The application of facts to a hypothesis does not require experiment.

If I hypothesize that person X makes incorrect claims more often than correct ones, I can go back and look at claims person X has made in order to test my hypothesis about his propensity for making incorrect claims.

biccat wrote:
I have it's nice you to ask. And I'll admit, there should probably be a difference between "serious social scientists" and "non-serious social scientists." Serious social scientists say that there is a positive correlation between smoking and cancer. Non-serious social scientists say smoking causes cancer.

The serious ones rarely get any airtime. And they don't write blogs like the one quoted.

Sure they do. Bueno de Mesquita has a blog, and so does Chomsky, and so does Krugman, and so do several others. Most academics now have blogs, and often use them to rant about things which annoy them. Many serious social scientists also get a great deal of media attention, though what they say may not be particularly rigorous.

Are you attempting to use a characteristic irrelevant to claims that are made in order to attempt to discredit that claim?

biccat wrote:
I never said that they are mutually exclusive. But they are also not the same thing. While statistics is an important area of mathematics, it isn't a substitute for scientific study.

Indeed it isn't. Rather statistics are an element of scientific study.

dogma wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

Soladrin wrote:I thought common sense was... touching a hot stove hurts. Stuff like that.

Unless you have a particular genetic disorder, or significant nerve damage.

Which is not altogether that common.

dogma wrote:

And then we have to wonder if, while touching the stove hurts, hurting is bad. Some people enjoy pain.

Which is philosophy and not science.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:
Correlation, schmorrleation. There is a huge difference between "I am not accepting that money, it might be a scam artist" and "I am not accepting that money, I don't want unearned money", regardless of how much you convolute the phrasing.

Yes, there is, but that isn't what you initially said. If you cannot even properly reference your own comments, then I doubt you can properly reference those of others.

To explain the issue: if I claim to dislike X, then I am making no comment on why I dislike X. It may be that X is often misleading, or that X is often detrimental, or that X is often delicious. It does not matter, all that matters is that X is a thing which I dislike.



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halonachos wrote:
Which is philosophy and not science.

The many neuroscientists of the world disagree.

Kilkrazy wrote:Smoking's relation to cancer is the province of medicine not social science.

More propaganda from the Medical-Industrial Complex!

Hurting is bad, but how the body interprets the pain is different. Sure there may be a release of endorphins when pain occurs which makes the person think that the pain is pleasurable we acknowledge it as a defect.

What you are implying is that hurting is not always bad because some people enjoy being hurt because they like pain which tends to head into philosphical territory. Scientific territory would say that some people perceive pain as pleasurable and that is due to some sort of biochemical mistake in the body.

Wondering whether or not hurting is bad is philosophy because in the medical field if you hurt someone then you are doing harm and harm is bad.

halonachos wrote:
Wondering whether or not hurting is bad is philosophy because in the medical field if you hurt someone then you are doing harm and harm is bad.

Are you familiar with circular logic?

dogma wrote:so does Chomsky, and so does Krugman

So since two experts in their fields have bomb-throwing political blogs, you think this is illustrative of the point?

Neither Krugman nor Chomsky would write something so trite (ok, maybe Krugman) in their fields. But that's assuming you consider him serious.

Not circular logic, I am merely stating that harm is bad in the medical field and saying why it is as opposed to philosphy where hurting may be good.

If I had said that hurting is always bad, the fact that bad is painful is proof of this, then it would be circular logic.

I said that in the medical field hurting is harm, which is bad in the medical field according to the hippocratic oath.

halonachos wrote:Wondering whether or not hurting is bad is philosophy because in the medical field if you hurt someone then you are doing harm and harm is bad.

Oooow...my brain...

Pain/hurt is not a "bad" thing; It's a biological response to certain stimuli to inform the host that certain conditions (usually unfavorable) are occuring. if this biological signal is interpreted within the brain as "pleasure," then this is aberrant and "wrong."

If, however, the person in question feels the pain, and derives pleasure from pain (experiencing both, and not getting an accidental swap such as the first example), this is also an aberrant behavior (Aberrant here meaning diffferent from the baseline). The philosophical debate is then whether or not having aberrant behavior is "good" or "bad," not whether or not it is psychologically "normal" or not (It isn't).

As an example: If I strongly enjoy the smell of skunk juice, regardless of whether or not it's philosophically "wrong or right," it's still an abnormal response when compared to the majority of other people. Wrong and right have different meanings depending on the criteria used to apply that label.